Human origins of the biblical canon

One component of counter-apologetics, and certainly Christian apologetics, that isn’t discussed very often, but perhaps should be, is the creation of the Bible itself; that is, the series of events leading up to what we now have as the supposedly signed, sealed and delivered version of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament.

The running assumption in Protestant Christian circles, of course, is that the current work we now refer to as the New Testament was written and inspired by God shortly after the death of Christ in the 1st century and then compiled as the complete Bible with 66 books telling a cohesive narrative about man’s fall in the garden, his wandering in the desert, God’s followers prophesying about a coming messiah, Jesus’ birth, baptism, his miracles, his trial and execution and finally, his ascension and eventual return. Although doubting believers or inquisitive types may, on occasion, look outside the accepted apologetic literature in book stores and churches, most lay churchgoers simply take it as a given, as I did for so many years, that these books came together in a packaged, unaltered form straight from scribes and teachers in Jerusalem and Rome. Pastors, of course, know full well that this almost certainly is not the case, that the real history of the biblical canon is a lot messier than all of that, which is why it’s rarely, if ever, mentioned inside the walls of Protestant churches. If believers knew that the Bible was cobbled together piecemeal over the course of centuries, well then, they might begin to wonder about other aspects of scripture that look altogether manmade, and if that happened, pastors might have fewer numbers in the flock and so, the dominos might fall …

Church leaders can’t have that, so they sell a narrative about the divine origins of scripture, and simply leave it at that. And if an inquisitive mind does, by chance, raise a hand to ask how exactly these books came to us in modern form, they no doubt will answer in platitudes and vagaries, and make references to other apologetic works, as does Don Stewart, a contributor for the Blue Letter Bible, in response to the following question:

(Question): Who Decided Which Books Should Be Placed in the Bible?

The simple answer is that God decided which books should be in the canon. He was the final determiner. J. 1. Packer writes:

The church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by his work of creation, and similarly he gave us the New Testament canon, by inspiring the individual books that make it up (J. 1. Packer, God Speaks To Man, p. 81).

Stewart then quotes from someone named F. F. Bruce, author of “The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?”:

One thing must be emphatically stated. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognizing their innate worth and generally apostolic authority, direct or indirect. The first ecclesiastical councils to classify the canonical books were both held in North Africa — at Hippo Regius in 393 and at Carthage in 397 — but what these councils did was not to impose something new upon the Christian communities but to codify what was already the general practice of these communities.

The implied argument here is that early followers of the Christian church were already adhering to a set of traditions and teachings that were most likely passed down verbally through the generations. The church simply codified that which was already accepted as a coherent narrative carrying through from Genesis to the supposed events of the New Testament. Bruce only tells part of the story here. The work of shoring up various points of theology and developing what would later become the biblical canon actually began with the First Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. and subsequent synods, like those at Hippo Regius, Carthage and Constantinople through the 4th century. Although earlier writers like Origen and Tertullian had mentioned the concept of the trinity, now a central doctrine of Protestantism and Catholicism establishing Jesus as equal and distinct from the Father and Holy Spirit in the godhead, only at the council of Nicea was this idea solidified, despite the fact scriptures do not contain a trinity concept.

According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:

In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word trias (of which the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A.D. 180. He speaks of “the Trinity of God [the Father], His Word and His Wisdom (To Autolycus II.15). The term may, of course, have been in use before his time. Afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian (On Pudicity 21). In the next century the word is in general use.

And here is Gregory Thaumaturgus in the mid-3rd century as quoted from the encyclopedia:

There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards: therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever.

The idea of a holy trinity, then, was “deduced from a collocation of passages” and developed over time, as early church officials read the concept back onto scripture rather than pulling it directly from the teachings of Paul and the gospel writers, and since church leaders could not agree on the trinity through the 4th century, nor on which texts were indeed, canonical, until that time, what constituted “general practice” seemed far from certain, as it does today, given the sheer volume Christian denominations and myriad interpretations of scripture still in circulation. Here is a detailed look at the development of the New Testament from what appears to be a Christian perspective, which is an exception to the general rule I mentioned above that many apologists simply gloss over the information on the various synods that helped develop what would later become the Christian canon.

Of course, the best way for Christian leaders down through the generations to try to prove the Bible is the authentic word of God was to either ignore the early history of the canon, which many of them happily did, or purport that the book was formed at some point early in church history as a complete work. Indeed, as I implied earlier, if the Bible did not come to mankind as a complete work, and with it, the story of man’s redemption beginning in Genesis through the gospels and Revelation, is incomplete, or at least it was incomplete for the better part of three centuries until church leaders decided it was time to pull together what they thought was the authoritative word of God. By the time the council of Laodicia rolled around in 363 A.D., all the books of the final canon were included, with the exception of the story’s culmination in Revelation.

As this article on the origins of the Old Testament points out, the Hebrew Bible was not even complete in the 1st century:

… the traditional presupposition that the Hebrew Bible was closed by the end of the first century is simply unhistorical. James VanderKam explains, “As nearly as we can tell, there was no canon of Scripture in Second Temple Judaism.” … So how did the Jewish rabbis come to agreement over which books to canonize? There is no clear answer. It seems as though the canonical status of the books were decided, at least in part, on the grounds of the date of their composition—no books believed to be written later than the period of Ezra were included. This was based in large part on the Pharisaic thesis that prophetic inspiration ended after Ezra and Nehemiah.[44] However, this presupposition is a problematic criterion for Christians who affirm that the Spirit inspired the books of the New Testament.

Although the majority of believers remain completely in the dark on all of this — church leaders are hoping they remain that way — this information is now readily available for anyone who might go looking for it, so pastors and “theologians” have had to spin a new yarn. The new argument among apologists goes something like this: While believers have disagreed about a few details here or there — a few? — the central tenets of the gospel were preserved by word mouth for centuries before it was ever written down and canonized, so surely this speaks to the truthful, authenticity, poignancy and durability of the message? I know longer have a copy of Handbook of Christian Apologetics, but I am certain that I read some version of this argument in that book years ago.

Daniel F. Lieuwen articulates the argument this way:

… Clearly, it was possible for people to be Christians with something less than total clarity about the contents of the New Testament. They were able to be Christians because they belonged to the Church which existed before the New Testament existed and has frequently been forced to make do with no written copies in whole areas due to persecution or poverty. The Church preserved and preserves the teaching of Christ and of His apostles, and not only the words on the pages of sacred scripture, but also the correct set of presuppositions, the authentic tradition which is required to interpret scripture correctly. …

Clearly it was possible, since Christianity is still with us, but this argument falls apart when one considers the nature of God and the actual claims contained in the Bible. In numerous places in both the Old and New testaments, numerous commandments are given forbidding followers to add or subtract anything from the “unalterable” word of God. Here is Deuteronomy 12:32:

What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

One has to wonder if that includes the 27 brand new books that Yahweh, omniscient as he is, would eventually add to the mix. How about Proverbs 30:5-6?

Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

Or the ultimate rejection of addition and subtraction from Revelation 22:18-19:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book.

The irony, of course, is that the church didn’t even accept Revelation as part of the canon until well into the 4th century, as Revelation itself represented a violation of God’s longstanding “don’t add, don’t subtract” message dating back well before Jesus issued his “new covenant,” another violation.

An omniscient and all-powerful god overseeing the dissemination of his one and only transmission to mankind and inspiring the writer of Deuteronomy would have known, at the very moment of inspiration, that parts of the Bible would eventually be added to and embellished and poorly translated, such that Deuteronomy and all the other books of the Old and New testaments read precisely as they should if penned by isolated, fearful desert wanderers grappling in the dark. Indeed, the Bible as a whole, pieced together a little here and a little there, developed exactly as we would imagine it would in the hands of imperfect humans.

On this count, Christians give their deity far too little credit in imagining such a sloppy creator who, when we apply just a touch of logic, disintegrates into absurdity.

Creationists and intelligent design advocates want us to believe that God, in his immense power, fashioned a world as complex as the one we live in, supposedly uniquely fitted to our purposes, innately understands every single nuance of the universe, from biology, physics, atomic theory and quantum mechanics, yet when the time came to deliver his preeminent message to the world, God somehow forgets all that information about science and the physical world and suddenly becomes limited by the middling rhetorical and intellectual power of semi-literate scribes.

What we have in the Bible is essentially a period-piece that is, predictably, built on archaic notions of sun worship and blood sacrifice trending across many mythologies and ancient civilizations at the time:

A truly impressive god, perhaps one even worth admiring, could have, with a single utterance or wave of the finger, delivered an impressive, noncontradictory book that accurately anticipates, to the stupefaction of his chosen writers, all the wonders of modern science and all the tragedies and triumphs of mankind without compromising on a basic message of peace, hope and love.

On the New South: ‘Look to the future’

I have “microblogged” a couple things on Facebook the last couple days, as I have been out of town and have not had much time to spend on the site. In the next couple posts, I’ll provide a few thoughts on the tragic church shooting in Charleston and the ongoing and seemingly perennial Confederate flag controversy in my home state of South Carolina. If you would like to follow me on Facebook, I can be found here.

First, a lot of friends from my home state have been chiming in on the Confederate flag issue, and most, but certainly not all, at least among my circle of acquaintances, have been symptathetic to the argument that at this point in the history of the South, the Confederate flag is, at best, a relic and should take its rightful place in a museum, and not on the State House grounds.

Here is the main part of a post from Facebook user Josh Roberts, reposted by former high school classmate, with which I agree wholeheartedly:

… I have two main points to make:

1: the flag simply makes our friends and neighbors feel like shit. To have it flying on the grounds of our seat of government, right there on Gervais St, makes many of our fellow citizens feel, and rightly so, that THEIR history of violent oppression, some of which Alan detailed, is being ignored and devalued. What our black brothers and sisters feel about that flag is very real. And how are they supposed to feel when the state they’re citizens of so flagrantly waves their pain in their faces? History is fascinating and exciting, and it’s who we are, but it’s just that: history. It simply doesn’t belong flying on the state house grounds, because it is so divisive. The Confederate Relic Room is right down the street. The State Museum is right down the street. History books are in every school. Everybody knows about the Confederacy, and that’s not going to change. Just don’t have it on a flagpole at the State House. The US flag and the SC flag are the only ones that belong there.

2. I’m sorry this may come across rudely, but I don’t mean it that way. You are not being “ethnically cleansed.” Here’s the Wikipedia definition. Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous.[1] The forces applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), intimidation, as well as mass murder.

That’s not happening to us white southerners. It just isn’t. No one is trying to wipe the world clean of us.
No one is even trying to stop you from flying the Confederate flag at your house, or putting a bumper sticker on your car, or going to a reenactment, or studying the war, or celebrating your ancestors’ bravery. I celebrate mine. No one is trying to stop you from being interested in The Civil War. I signed a petition to take the flag from the State House grounds, not from you.

I urge you to understand the past, but look to the future. We have to move forward with empathy and compassion, together with all the races. To me, an important step to the future is to take down a pretty big symbolic obstacle to the unity we desperately need. …

Well said.

April 9, 1865

general-grant-meets-robert-e-lee-english-school-

Lee surrenders to Grant.

The anniversaries of noteworthy historical events come and go all the time, but I would be remiss if I didn’t note that 150 years ago today, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

Here is how Michael Bailey, with The Boston Globe, began his reflection on location:

APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE — Walk along the red dirt remnants of the Richmond-to-Lynchburg stagecoach road here, the quarter-mile from a tiny Confederate cemetery to the place of surrender in a private parlor, and carry with you the thought of Robert E. Lee. Astride his horse Traveler and dressed in a resplendent uniform, the lionized general rode away from Appomattox on this road on a Palm Sunday 150 years ago finally beaten, a knot of Union officers silently saluting him, his starving Confederate soldiers giving him a rousing cheer as he approached, then crumbling to the ground in sobs as he passed.

Think of Ulysses S. Grant, in a soldier’s shirt, spackled with mud, riding this road after writing and presenting to Lee the simple, generous terms of a surrender that would begin the generations-long process of binding the nation’s wounds, this the same man who had to corral personal demons of the bottle before conquering the rebels in battle.

Yet on your short walk amid the scent of fresh-cut hay, carry also in your reflections Jesse H. Hutchins, an infantryman who enlisted in the Confederate army days after the opening blasts of Fort Sumter, survived through four years and dozens of such brutal battles as Gettysburg, gave the last of his loyalty, in vain, during a skirmish on this battlefield, and lay now in that small cemetery, about 400 paces from the place of surrender and 690 miles from his Alabama home.

Mythologized figures haunt this land. Yet, the story of our Civil War and its climax are often best revealed in the hopes and horrors of the grunt soldier, the anxious townswoman, the slave. ….

And as David Blight, with The Atlantic tells us, the work started in the Civil War, the struggle for true civil rights and the final realization, in both theory and practice, that “all men are created equal” is not complete.

Cross-purposes

Credit: Yahweh, God Almighty

Credit: Yahweh, God Almighty

Charles C. Haynes in his most recent “Inside the First Amendment” column addresses the court case of American Atheists, Inc. v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in which nonbelievers have attempted to keep the notorious cross-shaped beam from being exclusively displayed at the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at Ground Zero in New York.

Although some Christians have found comfort and even symbolism in the existence of the “cross” among the wreckage at Ground Zero — despite the inconvenient fact that practically all construction beams can be construed to look like crosses — some atheists have contended that the cross at the historic site violates the Constitution. But as the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the recent case,

The Establishment Clause is not properly construed to command that government accounts of history be devoid of religious references.

The American Atheists group essentially agreed that the cross was important for historic reasons, but argued that if the cross was going to remain at the site, a display should be added acknowledging that nonbelievers were also victims in the tragedy. Here’s the important part in Haynes’ column:

In rejecting the atheists’ challenge to the display and demand for equal time, the appeals court panel took the opportunity to give a primer on the meaning of government “neutrality” under the First Amendment.
Yes, the Establishment Clause requires that government remain neutral among religions — and between religion and non-religion. But for constitutional purposes, neutrality doesn’t mean ignoring religion or, in this case, leaving religion out of the story.

Government-funded museums may not, of course, erect displays intended to promote or denigrate religion. Inclusion of religious artifacts (or objects viewed as having religious meaning) must have a secular or educational purpose.

The many religious paintings, altarpieces and other religious objects in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for example, have profound religious content and may have been used at one time for devotional purposes. But they are now part of a secular museum, displayed to convey the history of art. Remove religious images and objects from the West Wing of the National Gallery, and the place would be nearly empty.

Similarly, exhibits at the 9/11 National Museum have an obvious secular purpose: They document the history of the terrorist attacks and the rescue efforts that followed. The Cross at Ground Zero is a significant part of that story. Leaving this object out would not only be incomplete history; it would signal hostility to religion that could itself be viewed as a violation of the First Amendment.

The cross-shaped artifact is in the “finding meaning” section of the museum, included among some 1,000 objects associated with ways — religious and nonreligious — in which people sought to make sense of the attacks.

One can easily see how adding an atheistic display at Ground Zero alongside the cross or other religious or nonreligious items to cater to any and all groups who may or may not be offended by the exclusion of such could become ridiculous, which is why the Establishment Clause stipulates that the government doesn’t have to provide balance necessarily, just that religious symbols on public property have to have some type of underlying secular purpose or historical significance, like providing comfort to grieving families in a time of national tragedy. Of course, one can also easily see the irony in a symbol of one religion bringing spiritual comfort to one set of people that have suffered immense personal turmoil directly as a result of adherents to another religion. The story never changes: one religion cheers, the other mourns, vice versa ad infinitum and religion still poisons everything.

Download Haynes’ column here.

On Sam Harris’ controversial essay on Israel

Zionism “the initial demagogic lie (actually two lies) that a land without a people needs a people without a land. … 

“Israel doesn’t ‘give up’ anything by abandoning religious expansionism in the West Bank and Gaza. It does itself a favor, because it confronts the internal clerical and chauvinist forces which want to instate a theocracy for Jews, and because it abandons a scheme which is doomed to fail in the worst possible way. The so-called ‘security’ question operates in reverse, because as I may have said already, only a moral and political idiot would place Jews in a settlement in Gaza in the wild belief that this would make them more safe.

“Of course this hard-headed and self-interested solution of withdrawal would not satisfy the jihadists. But one isn’t seeking to placate them. One is seeking to destroy and discredit them. At the present moment, they operate among an occupied and dispossessed and humiliated people, who are forced by Sharon‘s logic to live in a close yet ghettoised relationship to the Jewish centers of population. Try and design a more lethal and rotten solution than that, and see what you come up with.”

— Christopher Hitchens, Frontline interview, May 2007

***

For all the intense criticism that has been hurled against neuroscientist Sam Harris for his recent essay, “Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?,” I think a lot of his naysayers, including Andrew Sullivan, P.Z. Myers, A Million Gods blog and others, missed the larger point.

First, Sullivan seems to take issue with the fact that although the title announces the fact that Harris doesn’t criticize Israel, he then proceeds to criticize Israel numerous times, not the least of which is a statement against Israel’s right to be in the first place. In the text of the essay, however, Harris admits that his position on Israel is “somewhat paradoxical:”

For those of you who worry that I never say anything critical about Israel:  My position on Israel is somewhat paradoxical. There are questions about which I’m genuinely undecided. And there’s something in my position, I think, to offend everyone. So, acknowledging how reckless it is to say anything on this topic, I’m nevertheless going to think out loud about it for a few minutes.

I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. [Note: Read this paragraph again.]

Now to the main part of the essay. Essentially Harris’ point is that Israel, as a democracy in the Middle East surrounded by enemies that have threatened to wipe it off the map for decades now — and for centuries before that — Israel should not be blamed for defending itself, and although thousands of deaths have resulted from the conflict on the Palestinian side, which has been wholly “disproportionate” in Israel, the latter nation has a vested interest in preserving civilians because of the residual and humanitarian backlash that has occurred for years and has flared up again in recent weeks. I don’t necessarily agree with that assessment, and I think Israel has played too strong a hand in responding to the threat from Gaza, and likewise, Hamas’ strategy of using humans as shields is reprehensible to the highest degree. In short, so-called “leaders” on both sides have failed their own people and failed miserably in refusing to broker longterm peace. Neither side has any winners for sure, but innocent people of Gaza, serving only as pawns for Hamas, have suffered the most. 

Here is one of Harris’ main points:

But there is no way to look at the images coming out Gaza—especially of infants and toddlers riddled by shrapnel—and think that this is anything other than a monstrous evil. Insofar as the Israelis are the agents of this evil, it seems impossible to support them. And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it.[Note: I was not saying that the horror of slain children is a moral illusion; nor was I minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering.]

And this, I think, is where critics have departed from Harris’ actual meaning and inferred their own. Myers, in his usual explosive tone, had this to say in retort:

The “Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the occupation”. Stop right there. What do you mean, we critics are “stuck”? Isn’t that a terrible, awful fact of Middle East history that is being blithely glossed over? Of course it is. Sam Harris apparently does not think it’s that big a deal that the Palestinians are suffering under an occupation, and for someone who wants to claim we have to look at the big picture to see the causes of the conflict, he doesn’t seem to see how that could have led to the hatred expressed by Hamas. Again, not to excuse it…but if you want to address it, you can’t simply call the Palestinians evil bad guys and offer no solutions other than shooting them. Both sides have deep antecedents and a thousand justifications.

Harris didn’t call everyday Palestinians evil or say their mass slaughter was acceptable. Indeed, and perhaps regrettably, Harris barely mentioned the plight of actual on-the-ground civilians who are the real victims in all of this, and regrettably again, he didn’t seem to make it clear that by “Palestinians,” in almost every instance, he meant members of Hamas, not innocent residents of Gaza.

One would think that astute readers such as Sullivan and Myers would have understood the nuance in context of Harris’ larger claim, which was that religious fanaticism such as practiced and preached by leaders of Hamas is really to blame for the suffering in Gaza. In the Middle East, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is ground zero in the whole saga, as fanatics have spent thousands of years tearing each other apart with their thinly veiled claims over territory in the so-called holy land. Compared with the likes of Hamas, Israel is a virtual Mecca of secular thought with a reported 42 percent defining themselves as more worldly Jews.

The larger point, then, is that Hamas’ endgame, if it could have its way, is ultimate submission under Allah for Israel and everyone else for that matter. Perhaps Harris didn’t make a larger enough deal about Israel’s settlements in Gaza, which Hamas views as an invasion of their territory, and he’s probably mistaken to think that the settlements are solely for security, but his basic thesis was not so much a whole cloth defense of Israel — he said clearly that civilian deaths in Gaza amounted to a “monstrous evil” and freely admitted that Israel has probably committed war crimes — but a castigation of religion and its grip on the region:

What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way.

This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don’t want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.

Sullivan seems to have completely misunderstood this last part, adamantly disagreeing and detailing all the reasons why we are not, in fact, living in Israel. As I understand it, Harris’ point here is that if radical religion such that is festering in parts of the Middle East is allowed to hop the river and infect us to any large degree in the United States, we will then take on the role of Israel, in beating back the fanatics at our own doorstep. In the same way, radicalism threatens to destroy any society in the world that values human peace and solidarity.

The fabric of the U.S.

Allen West reported to us on July 29 that he enjoys the chance he has to “educate, edify, and challenge us all to think beyond the obvious.” He then takes exception with a statement that President Barack Obama made about Muslims, namely, thanking Muslims for their 

achievements and contributions … to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy.

West invites us to “scour the annals of history” to look for instances in which Muslims have contributed to American history in this way. He picks up here:

I’d like some audience participation here. Please share what you think are the “achievements and contributions” for which we should all thank Muslim Americans in building the very fabric of our nation? Oh – and don’t forget “common values” — please share those as well.

I’ll go first. And I’ll go way back. I know Abraham was the father of all nations and he was Isaac and Ishmael’s dad. And in Genesis 16:11-12, (NIV) “The angel of the Lord also said to her (Hagar): You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

So to Muslims, I say thank you for being a part of the Judeo-Christian foundation that established this great nation. And I am thankful for this Bible verse so I understand God’s blessing upon what would ultimately lead to the growth of violent jihad.

The claim here, dubious at best, is that Ishmael was the ancestor of Arabs, and thus, a progenitor of Muslims, who will collectively and by extension “be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers,” as is the perception of radical Muslims.

In any case, Obama’s statement was obviously was not to be taken literally that Muslims were present and participated in the founding of the nation in 1787 — that’s absurd — just that they contributed to strengthening the modern democracy and cultural diversity that is the United States, which provides for the inclusion of people of all religions and all backgrounds, a doctrine which, as it happens, is the fabric of our nation.

Office read-off 2013

Below are the results of the 2013 office read-off between Blake and myself. Blake’s details are listed as page count, publication year and date completed. Details for my list are shown by the start and finish date and page count. I have provided links for the works we thought were the strongest.

Blake

  1. “George Washington’s War” — Robert Leckie, 660, 1992, 1/19
  2. Beyond the River” — Ann Hagedorn, 279, 2002, 3/17
  3. “The Man Who Would Be King” — Ben Macintyre, 291, 2004, 4/13
  4. The Captured” — Scott Zesch, 300, 2004, 4/20
  5. “Selling the President, 1920: Lasker & Harding” — John A. Morello, 102, 2001, 4/23
  6. Nellie Taft: Unconventional First Lady” — Carl Sferrazza Anthony, 411, 2005, 5/8
  7. “Eisenhower” — Alan Wykes, 157, 1982, 5/11
  8. Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding” — Darren Staloff, 361, 2005, 5/26
  9. “Means of Ascent” — Robert A. Caro, 412, 1990, 6/4
  10. “Words from the White House” — Paul Dickson, 179, 2013l, 6/6
  11. “Grover Cleveland: Study in Character” — Alyn Brodsky, 456, 2000, 6/17
  12. “Renegade: The Making of a President” — Richard Wolffe, 334, 2009, 

    6/28

  13. The Hunting of the President” — Conason and Lyons, 373, 2000, 7/11
  14. “Rothstein” — David Pietrusza, 387, 2003, 7/18
  15.  “A Good Life” — Ben Bradlee, 499, 1995, 7/26
  16. “Dominion of Memories” — Susan Dunn, 224, 2007, 8/3
  17. “Old Hickory” — Burke Davis, 386, 1977, 8/11
  18. “Presidency of James Earl Carter” — Burton I. Kaufman, 214, 1993, 8/18
  19. “The Kennedy Brothers” — Richard D. Mahoney, 377, 1999, 8/24
  20. “Founding Myths” — Ray Raphael, 277, 2004, 8/31
  21. “Island of Vice” — Richard Zacks, 366, 2012, 9/12
  22. “Last of His Kind” — Charles Robbins, 153, 1979, 9/19
  23. “Fraud of the Century” — Roy G. Morris Jr., 256, 2003, 10/1
  24. “The Devil in the White City” — Erik Larson, 390, 2002, 12/29

Jeremy

  1. Cleopatra: A Life” by Stacy Schiff, started Jan. 1, finished Jan. 20. – 324
  2. “Reconstruction” by Eric Foner, started Jan. 21 – 612, finished March 31
  3. “The Oedipus Cycle” by Sophocles, finished April 7. – 251
  4. “Why I Am Not A Christian” by Bertrand Russell, started March, finished April 7 – 259
  5. “The Portable Nietzsche,” edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann, started April 6, finished May 6 – 687
  6. “Absalom, Absalom!” by William Faulkner, started May 7, June 5 – 303
  7. “The History of White People” by Nell Irvin Painter, started May 7, finished June 29 – 396
  8. Judgment Days” by Nick Kotz, started July 20 – 434
  9. “Big Chief Elizabeth” by Giles Milton. Started July 20, finished Aug. 16 – 344
  10. The Fiery Trial” by Eric Foner – Started Aug. 14, finished Sept. 8 – 336
  11. “The Negro Classics” by Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson. Started Sept. 28, finished Oct. 4 – 511
  12. “V.” by Thomas Pynchon. – Started Sept. 8, finished Sept. 28 – 533
  13. “Half Slave and Half Free” by Bruce Levin – Started Oct. 4, finished 6 – 255
  14. “The Dante Club” by Matthew Pearl – Started Oct. 5, finished Oct. 10 – 380
  15. “Six Women of Salem” by Marilynne K. Roach – Started Oct. 13, finished Oct. 26 – 400
  16. “God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World” by Walter Russell Mead – Started Oct. 27, finished Nov. 13 – 413
  17. “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon – Started Nov. 15, finished Dec. 1 – 385
  18. “Go Down, Moses” by William Faulkner – Started Dec. 1, finished Dec. 11 – 383
  19. “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, Started Dec. 9, finished Dec. 13 – 104
  20. Morgan: American Financier” by Jean Strouse, Started Dec. 14, finished Dec. 31

Total page count — Blake: 7,844, Jeremy: 7,616.